Conundrums
by Snoball13
Summary: Liz sees colors. Sirius is turning the only color she truly hates. So how can they be best friends?
1. The Door

**Chapter 1: The Door**

There was a door in front of me.

And when I say a door, I don't mean a door like you would put on a bedroom to keep people out. I mean a door like you used to see on old castles, the kind that's big enough to really be a wall.

So what is my dilemma, you ask?

That big, enormous door has no handle, and I can't figure out how to open it.

Seriously, how do you open a door with no handle?

Usually, I would just pull my wand out of my pocket and hex the door out of the way.

Except that I seem to have lost my wand, too.

Apparently, I am currently in the world of conundrums. A door without a handle, a wizard without a wand. What's next, a book without words?

On second thought, that might actually be cool. If I could find one, I would have to convince my teachers to start using them in class.

Except that to do that, I'd have to get out of here.

It was somewhat infuriating. I didn't even know how I'd gotten here. The last thing I remember, we were in the middle of our match against Slytherin, and we'd been down by 10. I was yelling at James that if he didn't hurry up and find the Snitch, I'd curse him into next year for letting my little brother beat him.

So how the hell did I get here?

I had no doubt that James would catch the Snitch, and we would therefore win the Quidditch cup, and we'd have a grand party in the Common Room, where we'd all get smashed, and I'd end up in a broom closet with a girl that I'd never met before.

So overall, there was no reason at all for me to be locked in a room _without_ a girl I'd never met before, not drunk, and without any recollection of how the game ended up.

It was all very disorienting, really. If I only knew how I'd gotten here, maybe I'd be able to get out.

There was a positive side to not being drunk, of course.

Liz.

She was probably the only girl that didn't want to shag me, and the only one in particular that I didn't really care to.

Doesn't make sense, really, considering who I am, except that she's been one of my best mates since I was in my second year.

It was in our fifth year that she started to be disgusted with me. She doesn't really like my morals, see, so whenever I _do_ end up in a broom closet with a girl I don't know, she gets all pissy and won't speak to me.

So that kind of happens a lot.

I don't really get what her problem is, but it's gotten worse lately. Maybe she's just more practiced now, so she's better at it, but it seems more personal than that. It still doesn't make much sense.

After all, she chose me as a friend. She's a year younger than me, only a sixth year.

I could remember the day perfectly when she'd sought me out.

_I was sitting next to the tree out by the lake, at the beginning of January, without a cloak. We'd only gotten home from Christmas Holiday a few days ago._

_A tiny little girl walked over and sat down next to me._

"_Hello!" she said cheerfully._

"_Who are you?" I asked sullenly._

"_Elizabeth Greene. Or Liz, if you like."_

"_Why are you out here?" I asked. "You'll freeze."_

_She laughed lightly. "I like the cold. It's kind of silvery, you know?"_

"_How does cold have a color?" I was really annoyed by this little girl._

"_Everything has a color. Everything, everyone. Except people's colors change sometimes. I'm green, like my name! I used to be purple, though."_

_I ignored her._

"_You look really cold," she said. "Why are you out here?"_

"_To be alone," I said rather harshly._

_She didn't take the hint. "You know, usually when people say they want to be alone, they really mean they feel alone, and they just want someone to understand, but they think that nobody can."_

"_No," I said, emphasizing the word. "I want to be alone."_

_I finally looked her in the eyes, and she frowned. "You've been crying," she stated._

"_No I haven't." Boys don't cry. Didn't she know that?_

"_I really wish you'd stop lying," she said. "There's nothing wrong with crying, you know."_

"_I really wish you'd go away," I told her._

"_I'm annoying you, aren't I?" she said. "I'm not very good at this, I guess."_

"_Good at what?"_

"_Cheering people up."_

"_Oh." She'd caught me off guard._

"_Do you want a blanket?" she asked. She seemed to be wrapped in several, along with multiple cloaks._

"_Won't you get cold?"_

"_Not really. I've got extra."_

_I shrugged, and she took that as a yes, somehow managing to unwrap one of the blankets and hand it to me._

"_Thanks," I muttered._

_She beamed. "So why were you crying?"_

_I didn't really see how to stop her, so I just told her the truth. "My back hurts."_

"_Why."_

_I didn't answer. Even James didn't know about my parents, and I sure as hell wasn't telling this strange little girl._

"_I'm won't tell anyone, I promise. Besides, it's not like I have anyone to tell. I haven't got any friends."_

'Shocker'_ I thought, but I didn't say anything._

"_What's so secret about it?" she asked. "Is it personal, or is it because someone did it too you?"_

_I still didn't answer, but she took my answer from the look on my face. She told me later that it was because my color had flashed._

"_Who was it?" she asked. She seemed genuinely concerned now._

_Snow started whirling around us, and I saw her shivering through all her blankets before I realized that I was shivering, too._

"_We should go in," I said._

"_You're avoiding my question," she told me, frowning again. Frowning didn't really suit her, I thought. But she started to stand up anyway._

"_I'm not going to tell you," I pointed out._

_She nodded. "I know. But it's not really fair. I told you why I'm alone, but you won't tell me why you are, so we can't really understand each other."_

I never really knew why she wanted to understand me. Maybe she just wanted someone to understand her. Either way, we'd ended up sharing life stories. She was the first person I ever told about my family, my parents, all the expectations I didn't want to live up to.

And she told me how everyone considered her a freak, even her own family, and I realized that she was right when she said that lonely people just wanted someone to understand them.

So we'd ended up best mates, and even James didn't understand us. He liked Liz okay, but he'd never gotten over the color thing. I just learned to take it for granted, and it never bothered me. Remus didn't mind because he was different too, with his "furry little problem".

But lately Liz and I were drifting, because of me. So the more I kept control of myself, the closer we were.

I wished that I could just ignore it altogether, that need to always be with some girl or another. I had tried, so many times, but it didn't matter how hard I tried. I just couldn't get over it.

Right now, all I wanted was to be back where I belonged. I wanted so bad to be able to get through that stupid door and see Liz again, for however long it could be until she stopped talking to me again.


	2. The Color Red

**Chapter 2: The Color Red**

I looked down on my friend with a frown. His color was constantly shifting, and it didn't seem to want to stay put. It was giving me a headache, but I refused to look away.

Madam Pomfrey, the young nurse, had insisted that he would be fine, but he was consistently slipping closer and closer to the black, and I knew what black meant.

Black was death.

Ironic, of course, that my best mate would be black in name, then, but I'd found him to be the least dead person I'd ever met. His color was always changing, almost daily, to something new.

If I'd stuck to my resolution, I wouldn't be sitting here. Sirius had been becoming very fixedly red lately, and it made me mad. Most people had a fixed color all the time, and I'd learned that they all had meaning.

Every color was a different mood, or personality. A lot of people liked the color red, but I'd come to hate it.

Red was anger, and red was lust.

And my best mate was turning red.

I couldn't stand to be around him when he was like that, so I had told myself that I wouldn't talk to him any more until he stopped shagging girls just for fun.

It wasn't so bad before. It was annoying, sure, but it wasn't as often, and it didn't show up so much in his color.

But then when I'd confronted him about it, told him that I didn't think it was right for him to take advantage of all those girls just because he could, and they were willing, he'd gotten mad, telling me that it wasn't any of my business.

And then he started lying.

He would tell me that he hadn't been with the girls, and make excuses for where he'd been when I knew he was really off shagging some girl in a broom cupboard somewhere.

Red was lies.

It was around then, in the middle of my fifth year, that he'd started turning red. Before that, it was just something he was doing. But then it started becoming who he was.

At first, it was intermittent. He would go shag some girl, and for a couple of hours after that, he would be red. It was, no pun intended, a red flag for me, and I would avoid him until it went away. I didn't like having to think of my best mate that way.

Then that couple of hours turned into a couple of days, and the number of days between red got shorter and shorter until there wasn't any telling the difference anymore, and my friend was officially red.

It was like he wasn't my best mate anymore.

That was when I'd made the resolution not to talk to him again until he was back to that nice, soothing gold that I'd become so familiar with. It was bold, but in a kind way. I loved that beautiful, rich gold.

But I was sitting next to him now, very obviously breaking my resolution. Well, I wasn't really talking to him, but still, this proved how much I still cared about him.

The truth was that I hated caring about someone who I felt didn't care about me.

It wasn't fair of me to think that he didn't care about me anymore. I'd always been a bit of a needy friend, because the Marauders were my only friends, and Lily Evans, now that she and James were dating. It was stupid to think that he should be spending all his time with me. It wasn't like we were dating. It was selfish of me, really.

I did find it strange, however, that I was the only one sitting next to Sirius in the Hospital Wing. He had an infinite number of friends, but they seemed to be too preoccupied with beating Slytherin to remember that their friend was hurt.

Not that they could see how bad it was, not the way I could. To them, he would only look like he was sleeping, not hovering on the edge of black, the edge of death.

I wanted so badly for him to wake up.

I had never seen a Quidditch injury this bad before. He'd been hit on the head by both Bludgers at the same time, one on each side of his head.

I bit my lip as I recalled the last few seconds of consciousness my friend had had.

_Sirius was looking up, glaring at James, yelling at him about something. Nobody could hear him in the stands, but I knew by the look in James' eyes that he wasn't taking his friend very… seriously. No pun intended._

_I saw the first one coming, and I wanted to call out to him in warning, but I knew it was no use, he wouldn't hear me._

_I think James might have seen one of them too, but it didn't bother him; after all, Sirius was a Beater, Bludgers were his job._

_Without thinking twice, I suppose, James looked away and began circling the pitch like he always did._

_Then they hit. It wasn't until it hit that I saw the second one, and in horrific slow motion, I saw Sirius slip sideways off his broom. Then he was falling, and falling fast, toward the ground._

_I screamed, and hoped, uselessly, that maybe James would catch him, save his friend from the unforgiving solidity._

_But James was speeding toward the Slytherin goalposts. He had seen the Snitch, but hadn't even noticed his friend's misfortune._

_I imagined the thud as Sirius hit the grass. I must have imagined it, because there was no way I could have heard it, I told myself, even with the hush that had gone over the stadium. Not from that far away._

_And then I was sprinting down the aisle, moving as fast as I could, knocking people over in my panicked rush to get to the field._

_Even from my place high in the stands, I saw that bright, vibrant red flicker._

_I thought I heard Remus behind me, trying to make me stop, but he couldn't see it. Sirius was _always_ red. I was scared to see what color had replaced it now. I knew it wouldn't be gold._

_Then I was in front of him, and I crashed to my knees, sobbing. I knew it when I saw that flicker, but even then, a dark grey was seeping into the red, and I knew it would turn black, later, if someone didn't stop it, make him better._

_It was moving to fast for me to do anything about it._

_I saw players landing on the field around me, and I recognized that the game must be over._

_Madam Pomfrey, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Dumbledore were all there, too, and Professor McGonagall ws trying to make me move, to get out of their way, but I wouldn't let go of him._

_Then James was behind me, and he and Remus pulled me off, and without thinking I turned and started crying into Remus' shirt. He just stood there, let me cry myself out before he walked with me to the hospital._

After Sirius, Remus was my best friend. He knew why I'd been avoiding Sirius, and he knew that it didn't run very deep. He understood the morals that I was standing by.

I hesitantly reached over and touched Sirius's face, brushing that long hair away from it. I'd tried half-heartedly to convince him to cut it shorter, but it didn't work out too well. He insisted that "the ladies liked it long" and I had to admit that it _was_ pretty good-looking.

It would have looked better if it weren't for the smug look that went along with it.

I've never told him either opinion. It's not like it matters.

But now I just wanted him to wake up.

I would gladly take back the vibrant red, if it would get rid of the black slipping into the edges of his color.

Red was pain.

But black was worse.

**Author's Note:**

**Reviews would be very much appreciated. I'm thinking this is going to be pretty short, probably only another chapter or two, but I want to know what you guys think! Love it, hate it, I don't care, I just really need feedback.**


	3. The Willow

**In case you guys didn't catch on, Chapter 1 was Sirius' POV, and Chapter 2 was Liz's POV.**

**This chapter is Liz's POV**

**Chapter 3: The Willow**

Three days after the Quidditch match, I was sitting under the willow tree by the lake, reminiscing about my life at Hogwarts.

More accurately, I was reminiscing about my life with Sirius. It was times like these when I always seemed to remember the 'good old days' or whatever.

I was by the willow because everyone knew not to disturb me there. That is, everyone who might have wanted to in the first place. I was still considered a freak by most of the school. It was really only the Marauders and Lily that didn't, and that was all thanks to Sirius.

Come to think of it, a lot of the things in my life are thanks to Sirius. My only friends, passing Ancient Runes, my troublemaker habits. Actually, my personality probably comes a lot from hanging out with him, but I couldn't decide if that was on the list of _good_ things or not.

Since Sirius turned into a playboy and I started hanging out with him less, my personality mellowed out quite a bit. That's actually quite a bit thanks to Remus. He's always there for me.

I think it's because I've never seen anything wrong with him. I knew before almost everyone that he was a werewolf, because all day on the full moon, he would turn the same blue-silver that the moon is. It only took me about three months of the repeated color to be sure of it, because I'd met a werewolf before when I was a little kid.

I'd asked Remus about it then, and he'd been worried that I would be estranged, but I didn't care. The rest of the time, he was a very nice pale yellow. Personally, I thought yellow was one of the best colors. After gold, of course.

And he had never thought there was anything wrong with me, either. I think he almost accepted my colors easier than Sirius had. He was so used to being the freak that it must have been a relief to know he wasn't the only one.

As much as Remus had accepted me, Peter was afraid of me. I don't really know why. I mean, one of his best friends is a werewolf, and he's perfectly fine with that, but he's afraid of the girl who sees colors on things.

I'd never really been Peter's biggest fan either, though. He was a nasty, murky brown color that reminded me of muddy swamp water. I tended to avoid him as much as was possible.

James was a mystery to me. He was gold, like Sirius had been, but brighter, almost blinding. It showed his purity and boldness, with a slightly harsher edge to it that was the justice in him.

I knew that James didn't really understand my gift, and it still freaked him out a little bit when I knew things about people based on it, but for the most part it didn't bother him anymore. He'd gotten used to it over the years. He was a lot weirder about it when we first met.

And then there was Lily. She really was blinding if I looked at her for too long. Her color was a pure, snow-white. She'd been slightly despairing when I told her this, because she thought it was boring, but I explained that it meant that she had a pure, kind soul. It was true, too. She was the purest person I'd ever met.

She did tend to get a little moody sometimes, but it only tainted her slightly. If she was mad, she would get the slightest red tint. Red, not pink. Pink was nauseating.

Overall, my friends were the best people in the world, if you didn't count Peter, who I didn't really count as a friend at all.

I was thinking about my friends, and looked up at the willow tree. It was green, like I was, like my name, but the tree was a soft, breathy green, not quite pastel, but not bright enough to be anything else.

I'd never told Sirius that I envied the trees. I loved their beautiful, soft colors that were kind, and righteous. Trees never did anything wrong. They just sat and witnessed all the things around them. They didn't experience the turmoil that humans experienced. They just observed.

I've wondered, occasionally, if maybe the trees envy me, too, for the ability to experience.

I found myself thinking about all the things that willow had seen.

_A little girl, wrapped in blankets, walked down toward the lake, toward the boy behind the branches, hiding._

"_Hello!"_

"_Who are you?"_

"_Elizabeth Greene. Or Liz, if you like."_

_An hour or so later, two newfound friends walked the other way, back up toward the castle._

How many friendships had the tree seen formed?

"_You'll owl me, right?" the little girl asked._

"_Sure. If my parents will let me use the owl."_

"_You'll let me know if something bad happens?"_

"_Yeah. If I'm allowed out of my room to know."_

"_You'll be okay?"_

"_I'll do my best."_

How many separations with unknown endings had the willow witnessed?

_A group laughed and giggled as they hurled snowball after snowball over hand-made forts in two feet of snow._

_Magic wands melted the forts on each side, the battle becoming who could keep filling in the holes before they were slammed with more snow._

_More giggles as the tree dumped a pile of snow on top of the group closest to it, and they went shrieking out into the open, away from the avalanche._

How many traditions had it seen upheld, no matter how ridiculous?

"_I ran away from home this summer."_

"_Why didn't you owl me? Where did you go?"_

"_You weren't speaking to me. I went to the Potters."_

"_I still would have wanted to know."_

"_Why are you speaking to me now?"_

_Tears slipped down the girl's face. "Do you not want me to?"_

_The boy wiped away the tears. He wasn't sure what to say. "Of course I do! You're my best friend!"_

"_Then why do you care?"_

"_I guess I more want to know why you weren't speaking to me before."_

"_Oh." The girl paused._

"_Won't you tell me?"_

"_I don't want you to get mad."_

"_Oh. I'll try not to."_

_But he did. When she told him what she thought of what he'd been doing, he did get mad. He told her it wasn't any of her business."_

How many friendships had the tree seen torn apart?

_There was a different boy with the girl this time._

"_He's been avoiding me, Remus." The girl was crying._

"_I know."_

"_He was mad that I wouldn't tell him, and when I did, he was mad all over again!"_

"_I know."_

"_Can't you say anything else?"_

"_Sorry, Liz. I'm not very good at this, I guess."_

"_Good at what?"_

"_Cheering people up."_

_The girl chuckled, and the new boy looked at her strangely. "What?" he asked._

"_That's what I used to tell Sirius."_

"_Oh."_

"_Why is he mad at me?"_

"_I don't know."_

"_Wish you did."_

"_So do I, Liz, so do I."_

How many lonely ex-friends had the tree seen, who thought they couldn't understand each other anymore?

"_Why don't you just ignore me, then?" the boy shouted. It was the first boy again._

"_What, like you've been doing to me?" the girl cried. "Because that's worked out so well for you, is that it?"_

"_It's not my fault if I'm your only friend!" The girl recoiled, but the boy kept going. "I'm not ignoring you; _I_ just have other people to hang out with!"_

"_Yes, because those girls are such great friends to you after you move on to the next slutty bitch!"_

"_You don't know anything about them!"_

"_I know more than you! Or did you forget that I'm the freak that 'sees things'?"_

"_Oh, quit pitying yourself. If you weren't so high and mighty about it, no one would even know there was anything wrong with you?"_

"_Wrong with me? _Wrong with me?_ What happened to 'that's so cool, people don't know what they're talking about?"_

"_Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about!"_

_The girl backed away from him slowly. "I guess I was the one who didn't know what _I_ was talking about. I should have known; the colors never lie. You're not my best friend anymore – you're just a man-whore with a bad-ass attitude that you use to cover up one fact: you're a pathetic, self-loathing _loser_." _

_The girl turned and fled toward the castle. She was too far away to hear when the boy called out after her, "You just described yourself."_

How many hearts did the tree seen ripped apart?

I was sobbing for the memories, wishing desperately that I could take back everything I'd said. Sirius was almost entirely black now, and I hated to think that he would die without knowing how much I really cared.

I really, really didn't want him to die. At the very least, I wanted to be able to apologize. I might not be able to see my favorite color back again, but I could let him know how I felt. We might not be able to be friends again, but he should know that I still wanted to be. Then I would be able to rest knowing that he knew that it was still out there, if he could ever forgive me.

I heard a loud, panting breath behind me, and I turned to find Remus there, clutching at a stitch in his chest.

"Remus?" I asked. "What's wrong?" I bit my lip, expecting the worst.

He grinned at me. "He's awake."

My eyes widened, and the tears stopped. I wiped them away as I stood, not wanting Sirius to know that I'd been crying. Especially not over him.

But then I smiled. I would get the chance to tell him the things that my heart was screaming, and I knew that tonight, at least, I would rest well.

**Author's Note:**

**The next chapter will probably be the last, but I'm considering making Liz a recurring character, and write more stories of their time at Hogwarts, and beyond. Let me know what you think of that idea, and I'll try to let you know what the consensus is in chapter 4. Thank you to all my wonderful reviewers from last chapter. I think that in terms of timeliness, this story might be my biggest success yet.**


	4. The Choice

**Chapter 4: The Choice**

I didn't run. Oh, how I wanted to, like some kind of fairytale. Run across the meadow with nothing between me and my prince.

There were several problems with that. Sirius wasn't a prince, and there was a hell of a lot between us that didn't even come _close_ to a bit of grass.

Need I even mention that my life is definitely _not_ a fairytale?

So I walked, with Remus walking right next to me. I could feel the tension in him, and I understood. Sirius was in bad shape, and he and I weren't exactly on great terms. He was worried it was about to turn into some kind of screaming match.

I would do my best to stay calm. Hadn't I just told myself a few days ago that I would rather Sirius be red forever than fade into the black? I chuckled to myself. I always had thought that Sirius's name was ironic.

When I reached the door to the Hospital Wing, I paused. Remus rested his hand on my shoulder, reaching out with his other hand to open the door.

I was relieved to find that there were no random girls sitting around Sirius. I probably would have turned and run.

Instead, I found my friends there. They were laughing, joking around. Thankfully, although I couldn't imagine why, Pettigrew was absent, leaving only James, Lily, and then also Frank Longbottom, Alice Prewett, Mary MacDonald, Dorcas Meadowes, and Marlene McKinnon.

Alright, so he _was_ surrounded by a fair number of girls, but I also knew that the only one among them that he had ever shagged was Marlene, and she was just like that, so it didn't bother me. Not in comparison to his random shagging of strangers, at least.

It wasn't until after I observed my friends that I actually looked at him. He was staring at me wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. Was it really that unlikely that I would come to visit him?

I whispered the same question to Remus. He shrugged apologetically. I took that as a yes. Wonderful.

I walked slowly toward his hospital bed. It felt like the walk of death. All of them were staring at me now, although I did notice that Lily and Dorcas mostly just looked sympathetic.

Somewhat tactfully (for him, at least), James tugged gently on Lily's sleeve and tilted his head toward the door. They stood up, and the rest of the group stood with them. As they walked past me, I saw Lily give me a sad little smile, and James patted me on the back.

Remus gave my shoulder a squeeze before releasing it and following our friends out the door.

Oh, how tempted I was to just turn around and go with them.

But I couldn't. I had promised myself that I would explain to him that I was still willing to be friends with him, despite his unfortunate addiction to shagging random strangers, and so help me, I would.

I hesitantly perched on the chair next to his bed, and he still hadn't looked away from me. He hadn't even _blinked_.

Was he set on making this awkward for me?

"Hey," I said quietly, trying to break the awkward silence.

It worked. He blinked. "Hey."

Except now he looked confused, instead. Had I really been that bad? I hadn't been ignoring him for that long, had I?

"How're you feeling?"

"Like a Bludger hit me in the head," he smirked.

"Make that two," I grinned. God, why was it so damn _easy_ to be friends with him when all I _wanted_ to do was be mad at him. In a friendly way, of course.

See, while I was willing to be friends with him, I was still completely and royally _pissed off_ at him.

"That's what they've been telling me."

"Whoever 'they' were, they were right."

"Mostly my mobs of fangirls." He winked at me, but I was frowning. His brows pulled together, and he said, "I'm _kidding_, Liz. Kidding."

I was still frowning. He'd brought up the very subject I'd been trying to avoid.

"What?" he asked. Now he was frowning.

Not that his smile was really the same anymore anyway. He used to have that kind of lopsided smirk that was almost a smile. Now there was more smirk in it, and it was never sincere in the slightest.

Damn those stupid fangirls.

"Nothing," I said. Maybe he would drop it.

His frown deepened. "I know you, and it is definitely _not_ nothing."

"You know," I said teasingly, "if you keep frowning like that, you might get wrinkles."

He feigned horror, and I giggled. I actually _giggled_. Not laughed, which is what you _ought_ to do with your best mate, but _giggled_! What in the name of Merlin was wrong with me?

"Careful, there, Lizzy, do too much of that giggling and you might turn pink," he teased in response.

I stopped giggling (thank Merlin!), but I couldn't get rid of the smile that had plastered itself on my face.

Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed. "I've missed you, Liz." He was suddenly very serious.

My smile turned all wistful. "I miss you two."

"Miss?" he asked. So he'd notice my use of the present tense.

"Well," I said, grimacing. As set on it as I'd been before, I still wasn't all too keen on saying this out loud.

I paused, took a deep breath, and started again. He was watching me expectantly. "You''tstanditbecauseit'slikeyou'renotmybestmateanymore!"

He blinked again. I'd said it all very fast and now I'd have to repeat myself. Saying this twice was _not_ what I'd had in mind. Why did I have to be such a fast talker when I was nervous?

I wasn't nervous about saying it, of course. I was nervous about how he was going to react. His reaction wasn't so great last time I voiced my opinion. He'd gotten all pissy, and I'd started ignoring him, trying to preserve the memories of _my_ Sirius, not the pervy man-whore teen that had taken his place.

"Can you repeat that?" he asked. That non-Sirius smirk was back.

"Erm…sorry," I said sheepishly. "I said, you're not really _you_ anymore."

He cocked his head, looking like a lost little puppy. Minus a bit of the floppy-eared cuteness factor.

Slightly ironic that I was thinking of my former best mate as a puppy, considering that he is a dog animagus.

But that's beside the point. Sirius is definitely _not_ a puppy. Or lost, for that matter.

He gave me a look that clearly stated that I was taking too long, and I said, "Remember when I told you that you were my favorite color?"

"Yeah," he said, a touch of his old half-smile returning, if only momentarily. "Gold, like warm butterscotch."

I laughed at his use of my metaphor. "Right," I said, a little more confident now, but still wanting to sink through the floor. "Well, that gold color was part of what made you my best mate, although I guess maybe you were gold because of your _personality_, and that was why you were my best mate."

"Were?" he asked. He had a pained expression on his face. Why did I keep using the wrong tense? Or at least, it wasn't the wrong tense for the truth, but why did it have to be the _right_ tense?

"I'm getting there," I said quietly. "I say that you _were _my best mate, because you _were_ gold, but now you've gone all red, and I can't stand it!"

He bit his lip. It was one of those things that he'd taken to doing lately because girls thought it was _sexy_ or something ridiculous like that. Personally, the only other people I've ever seen bite their lip were pink, and seeing as pink, even as a personality, was a girly color, I thought it was stupid.

Even more proof that my best mate had left me with some pervy, man-whore teen – he was doing girly things to impress girls!

But I could only think about that for a moment, because Sirius knew what red meant. Or at least half – the angry half. After all, I'd only discovered the lusty half _after_ I'd gotten mad at him.

"I wasn't really mad at you, you know," he said softly.

"I know." I paused, but before he could say something else, I said, "It wasn't an angry red."

"Then what kind of red was it?"

"Lusty red," I mumbled.

"What?" he asked. I couldn't tell if it was a shocked 'what' or an I-couldn't-hear-you 'what', so I repeated myself.

"Lusty red." I must have been louder that time, because he heard me.

"Oh." He frowned. I wanted to wipe that frown off of his face, but at least he wasn't shouting at me. "Is that why you wouldn't talk to me?"

I gaped at him, and I felt like a fish. "Did I not make myself clear enough last June?"

"Well, you were shouting a lot, and I _was_ a bit angry then, so I couldn't really focus on all the nitty-gritty details, now could I?"

I rolled my eyes. "So you didn't even know _why_ I was mad at you?"

He thought for a moment. "Umm… no?"

I groaned. That was Sirius for you.

"I do remember a bit about you calling me a man-whore with a bad-ass attitude." I noted that he didn't bring up the pathetic, self-loathing loser part. That wasn't the part that I'd meant anyway.

I winced. "Er, well… yeah. I actually meant that." I bit my lip. Which was okay, because I'm actually a girl. "Kind of."

"Is it that bad?" he asked.

Did he really have to ask? "Yeah," I admitted.

He frowned again. I was tempted to reach over like I had when we were kids and turn up the corners of his mouth into a smile with my fingers.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking down at my hands and finding them suddenly very interesting.

"For what?"

And what was I sorry for? For caring? I sufficed with a shrug. I still wouldn't make eye contact though.

No matter how much I told him that I wanted the real Sirius back, it wouldn't change who he had become.

"Ah, Liz, come on. Talk to me." He paused, waiting, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. I'd said it all, and I'd run out of words. "Bloody hell," he groaned, leaning forward.

He pulled me into a hug that reminded me of how things used to be. If something was wrong, we just knew. And if we didn't, we could just talk about it, and we would fix everything.

If only it were still that easy.

I wrapped my arms around him in return, resting my chin on his shoulder. I hated to admit it, but I felt safe here. It made me think that maybe we could still be best mates, if I didn't think too much about how things _could_ be.

When he leaned back again, I looked at him. He looked like he was in pain, but not the kind you get from being hit in the head with a Bludger, or even two.

It killed me to know that I was the cause of all the pain.

I was about to say something, but he spoke first. "I wish I could just be fourteen again. Back when everything was easy."

"Yeah, no worries," I said, thinking back with him.

"Do you think I could be gold again?"

I whipped my head up to face him. His question caught me off guard, but I could see in his eyes that it was sincere.

I smiled at him, as true as I could. "I think if you tried, maybe you could get there eventually. But it wouldn't be easy."

"What is anymore?"

I beamed at him. "Nothing."

"Exactly. Besides, Lizzy, I miss having you around all the time. Whatever I can do to bring you back, I will."

My smile softened, but I contemplated whether or not to tell him the final bit of what I'd been meaning to. After all, if he knew I'd come back anyway, would he still be willing to change?

But I had to tell him. I couldn't lie to him, and I wasn't tough enough to not be around him all over again even if he did change his mind.

So I swallowed the remnants of my pride and told him. "You don't have to do anything."

"What?"

"Whether you change or not, I'll stick around. I'm sick of trying to avoid you."

I don't know what I expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't what he said.

He shook his head and gave me a true Sirius smile. "It doesn't matter whether you come back or not. You still won't like who I am, and I can't just keep being who I used to be around you, and then change around everyone else. Besides, I think even I like the old me better than who I am now!"

I laughed. "I think you're going to be disappointing a whole school-full of girls with that kind of thinking."

He pretended to think hard. "Well, when you put it that way…."

I swatted his shoulder. Usually it would have been his head, but that probably would have hurt more than I intended. "You're such a prat."

"Yeah, well, you know you love me for it."

"In spite of it. Get it right."

He grinned and ruffled my hair. "It's good to have you back, Liz."

"It's good to _be_ back." I reached up to smooth my hair back down. And it was. Red or gold, I'd made my choice, and I intended to stick to it.

**Author's Note:**

**Sorry I took so long, I changed dynamics so many times on how to end this that even I had no idea how it was going to go when I finally set to actually writing it.**

**I won't say the end, because it's not, really, but it is the end of this particular tale. I definitely intend to make Liz a recurring character, she's potentially my favorite OC of the ones I've created, so look for more from her life.**

**For now, I want to know what you think of this story. Did it live up to your expectations, or were you looking forward to something completely different. I want to know!**

**Signing off, your author,**

**~Sno**


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